American History Chapter 16-3

Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal

Theodore Roosevelt

• Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901.– Bully pulpit: T.R. used the presidency as a platform for change.

Roosevelt’s Presidency• 1902 - Roosevelt broke up a major coal strike by

threatening to take control of the mines.• 1904 campaign slogan: The Square Deal.– Promised all Americans fair treatment.

• Used the Sherman Antitrust Act to bust up bad trusts.• Elkins Act: Protected RR customers from unfair rates.• Hepburn Act: Gave the ICC the power to regulate

interstate trade.

Consumer Protection Under T.R.• Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle: Exposed the meat

packing industry & their unsanitary practices.– Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act: Required

federal inspection of meat passing over state lines.– Pure Food & Drug Act: Forbade the making & sale of food

& medicines that contained harmful ingredients.• Also required ingredient labels.

Sinclair

Environmental Protection• John Muir: Naturalist who encouraged the gov’t. to

preserve nature.– “God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought,

disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.” John Muir

• Gifford Pinchot: First to use the word conservation in terms of protecting natural environment.

Roosevelt’s Greatest Legacy

• President Roosevelt believed that natural resources were limited & and their use needed to be controlled.– Newlands Reclamation Act: Provided federal irrigation

projects to make arid land more useful.– U.S. Forest Service: Est. 1905 – Added 150 million acres of

controlled & regulated national forests.– Antiquities Act: 1906 law that led to 18 new national

monuments during Roosevelt’s presidency.

Gila National Forest 1907

Devil’s Tower 1908

Grand Canyon 1908

Muir Woods 1908